Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 579 posts

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#351

Post by sizzzzlerz »

jcomis wrote: post #157
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #89

Learning to play piano later in life. I'll never be close to being professional but I've spent enough time and effort in practice to become proficient enough to confidently play in front of others. My only regret is why I didn't start earlier.

how did you get started? just bought my first keyboard and not really sure what's next.

Find a teacher. Seriously, working with a knowledgeable teacher will help you learn what and what not to do. With some regret, however, that's not what I did.

I had been a musician, playing clarinet and sax, in high school and college so I knew how to read music and knew a bit of music theory. I decided one day that I wanted to learn. I bought an inexpensive Yamaha keyboard and a beginner level book and started working through it. It took me about a year but I was playing songs using both hands and with lots of mistakes.

At that point, I decided I liked it and wanted to continue so I bought a new upright piano and continued learning from other books and finding popular and jazz music I wanted to learn and just dove in. I'm probably a piano teacher's worst nightmare but I don't care. I love to play and I would love to get better but, at this point, I just can't devote the additional time at the keyboard needed to do that. And that's OK by me.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#353

Post by codr4 »

rubicon33 wrote: post #348
codr4 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of people who are managing that without making any money at all, despite all sorts of prolonged efforts to turn their way of living into hell. Integrity, being surrounded by loving people, being in good health, having the freedom to be all that you are. Those are all more important from my perspective. We've been carefully conditioned to believe that this game is the only alternative, it's not.

I don't believe it's the only game, rather, I believe it's the best. The alternatives are theoretically wonderful, but when you lose the security of regular meals, a roof over your head, a shower, etc... Suddenly I'm not convinced. Judging from the fact that you too are posting from a computer, running on the internet, I can assume you haven't adopted the virtuous life of income free bliss that you speak of?

Oh, for heavens sake. That's as far as you can see? You can get that in prison. We were born and raised on a giant slave plantation. There are enough resources to take care of everyone, so much that some of it has to be kept off the market to keep up the illusion and prices.

I'm currently scraping by at a bare minimum, growing my own vegetables and foraging whatever I can find in the area. And I find it infinitely more satisfying than writing software for startups and helping them rape the world in the name of profit.

On a more constructive note:

Consider the effort put into, and importance of, visualization in sports and other areas. If you can't see it; it's just not going to happen, ever. Same goes collectively. What's worse, you tend to get more or less what you expect. Which is why the people running our plantation put so much effort into making us visualize exactly the kind of slave life they have planned for us.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#354

Post by enitihas »

codr4 wrote: post #336
rubicon33 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to know, oh wise one, which of your many assets is going to help you when you have no means of securing a roof over your head, no means of a meal every night, no means of healthcare, or safety. I'm going to go ahead and agree with OP. Your ability to make money is your greatest asset, and one you should protect.

There are plenty of people who are managing that without making any money at all, despite all sorts of prolonged efforts to turn their way of living into hell. Integrity, being surrounded by loving people, being in good health, having the freedom to be all that you are. Those are all more important from my perspective. We've been carefully conditioned to believe that this game is the only alternative, it's not.

Can you elaborate a bit more on how people are managing the above things without making money at all?

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#355

Post by balladeer »

monster_group wrote: post #55

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel gr…

Interesting. We were in general decent at this language till class 10 (high school/secondary school). We were forced to learn it so while we got better at it we hated it and except one guy none of us continued this subject (as an elective) in class 11-12 (senior secondary) and that last guy too moved to Economics after class 11. In India class 11-12 used to have a 5th subject (elective) and even tough no one really did it for passion a lot of people took Sanskrit anyway (esp. for class 10 CBSE board exams) as it was also supposed to be a we scoring language. Don't know how much CBSE (kind of our national school board) has changed in last decade or so.

We used to have Sanskrit months and weeks when we were supposed to interact with each other pretty much entirely in Sanskrit. It had such a solid grammar and I'd say it was flexible too. I wish we were introduced to it in a flexible manner. I remember myself being able to rad Sanskrit books with relative ease. But, now? Last time I tried I couldn't. I kind of blocked this language out. I talked to couple of friends and they had similar experiences.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#357

Post by klibertp »

mattlondon wrote: post #285
xor1 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most brilliant and successful engineers I know don't have degrees, and they accumulated their vast CS knowledge on their own. They all dropped out of college within the first two years and started working at 19-20. Two of them now run their own software consulting businesses, one is a lead at Netflix, and one is a lead at Google. They're all a bit older than me, in their early 30s now. The younger ones -- one jus…

> Do you believe that you need to the environment, structure, and pace provided by college/university to actually learn CS, and that you're incapable of doing so on your own? For me, it was not a case of not being able to do it on my own, it was not knowing what I should know . You could probably spend years becoming an expert on C# or Java or C++ or Go or whatever just by coding in it at your own pace (or at a job)…

> what they should learn next

Easy: whatever seems interesting.

> when, and in what order

Every single book I've read listed the things you should know before reading it in the introduction. If there's something you don't know about, you go back to the library or bookstore. Rinse and repeat, then start from the bottom and climb back up until you reach the first book. It's easy.

> and never need to ask any experienced people

There were so many experienced people on the Internet even back when I was a kid that you didn't have any problem with finding and asking them. They were incredibly helpful, especially in suggesting which books on a given topic to read. Assuming that you can get access to such people only in college is kind of elitist.

> to clear up misunderstandings

As I said, smart people are everywhere (on the Internet), just reach out and they'll help you. Well, maybe it was easier in the 90s - or maybe not, I don't know - but I'm 100% sure that not all the smart people of the world are in colleges right now.

> or have their knowledge checked

Your programs are self-evaluating proofs of your understanding. Cross-checks by others are nice, but hardly essential.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#358

Post by balladeer »

treydey wrote: post #178
monster_group wrote: post #55

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel gr…

This is an extremely interesting perspective. I actually had the opposite experience. I was forced to learn sanskrit throughout my high school career and I absolutely hated it. I'm an extremely practical person and I have no use for the language at all.

Whoa, I mentioned a similar experience before seeing your comment!

Vidya/Shishu Mandir?

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#359

Post by randcraw »

pram wrote: post #16

Learning Linux/UNIX has by far yielded the most return in my life. I started at 14. It turned into my career. It has been very lucrative and I still love it. In contrast: I started learning how to draw digitally ~2 years ago and it’s mostly just painful and unrewarding. I feel like an emo teen again. I can’t quit though because I have strong feelings about the sunk costs :V

Agreed, my time spent learning Linux/unix has reaped rich dividends. A textbook on operating systems offers only an abstract intro to the concepts. Wading hip deep into a high powered open unix in which you configure and build your own kernels, filesystems, networks, and program both high and low level services — as Linux allows — greatly empowers the curious admin or developer, and offers insights into computer infratructure that far exceeds mere coursework or certifications.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#360

Post by mmirate »

fsloth wrote: post #261
mmirate wrote: post #84

Why is it necessary to truly avoid exploiting the other party, instead of merely maintaining for them an illusion that they're not being exploited?

Because uncompromisingly compassionate behaviour towards other human beings is the ultimate and best way to make a world better place. Unless you are a billionare and can compete in funding woth nation states.

Is that supposed to mean something?
Post reply on HN